Mpox circulated for five years before global explosion in 2022, research finds

Mpox vaccine prepared at a pop-up vaccination clinic in Los Angeles, California, in 2022. Photograph: Patrick T Fallon/AFP/Getty

The disease formerly known as monkeypox, which spread around the world in an unprecedented outbreak in 2022, was circulating in humans for more than five years before the explosion of cases triggered a global public health emergency, researchers say.

The discovery of longstanding, hidden transmission between humans has led to calls for improved global surveillance of the MPXV virus to eliminate the disease, renamed mpox last year, from humans and prevent it from re-emerging.